Clement Lindley Wragge (18 September 185210 December 1922) was a
meteorologist
A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...
born in
Stourbridge
Stourbridge () is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Situated on the River Stour, Worcestershire, River Stour, the town lies around west of Birmingham,
at the southwester ...
,
Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...
, England, but moved to Oakamoor, Staffordshire as a child. He set up the Wragge Museum in Stafford following a trip around the world. He was a Fellow of the
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...
and in 1879 was elected Fellow of the
Royal Meteorological Society
The Royal Meteorological Society is an organization that promotes academic and public engagement in weather and climate science. Fellows of the Society must possess relevant qualifications, but Members can be lay enthusiasts. It publishes vari ...
in London. To the end of his life, he was interested in theosophy and spiritualism. In 1908, during a tour of India, he met with
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (13 February 1835 – 26 May 1908) was an Indian religious leader and the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam. He claimed to have been divinely appointed as the promised Messiah and '' Mahdī'', in fulfillment of th ...
of Qadian, the founder of the
Ahmadiyya
Ahmadiyya, officially the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at (AMJ), is an Islamic messianic movement originating in British India in the late 19th century. It was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), who said he had been divinely appointed a ...
movement in Islam who had claimed to be the
Mahdi
The Mahdi () is a figure in Islamic eschatology who is believed to appear at the Eschatology, End of Times to rid the world of evil and injustice. He is said to be a descendant of Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad, and will appear shortly before Jesu ...
, the messianic redeemer awaited by Muslims.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...
sought him out in New Zealand to ask for his views on spiritualism before writing ''The Wanderings of a Spiritualist'' in 1921. After training in law, Wragge became a
meteorologist
A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...
, his accomplishments in the field including winning the
Scottish Meteorological Society's Gold Medal and years later starting the trend of using
people's names for cyclones. He travelled widely, giving lectures in London and India, and in his later years was an authority on Australia, India and the Pacific Islands.
Early years

Wragge was originally named William Lindley (Lindley being the name of his great uncle), but this was changed to Clement Lindley. Both of his parents died when he was young: his mother at five months and his father, Clement Ingleby Wragge, at five years following a fall from his horse. He was raised for a number of years by his grandmother, Emma Wragge (née Ingleby) at
Oakamoor, Staffordshire who taught him the rudiments of cosmology and meteorology. Emma's husband George had died in 1849 and had managed the Oakamoor works of the Cheadle Brass Wire Company before it was sold to Thomas Bolton in 1852.
Wragge became an avid naturalist at a young age, being surrounded by the beauty of the Churnet valley. He was educated initially at the Church school in Oakamoor, and then his formal education was at
Uttoxeter
Uttoxeter ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in the East Staffordshire borough of Staffordshire, England. It is near to the Derbyshire county border.
The town is from Burton upon Trent via the A50 and the A38, from Stafford via the A51 ...
Thomas Alleyne's Grammar School. Wragge hated being a boarder at Uttoxeter and ran away, but was returned to the school where he excelled. Upon the death of his grandmother in 1865 his uncles George and William decided that he should move to London to live with his Aunt Fanny and her family in Teddington. He was considered by his aunt to be spoilt and he rebelled against the harsh treatment. There he later boarded at the Belvedere school in Upper Norwood and at the end of his education he improved his Latin in Cornwall. He then followed in the footsteps of his father, studying law at
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, commonly known as Lincoln's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for Barrister, barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister ...
. He also attended
St Bartholomew's Hospital
St Bartholomew's Hospital, commonly known as Barts, is a teaching hospital located in the City of London. It was founded in 1123 by Rahere, and is currently run by Barts Health NHS Trust.
History
Early history
Barts was founded in 1123 by ...
alongside medical students to watch operations. Wragge travelled on the continent of Europe extensively with his Uncle William of Cheltenham. His second cousin was
Clement Mansfield Ingleby, a partner in the family law firm Ingleby, Wragge, and Ingleby (which later became known as Wragge & Co of Birmingham), and later a literary scholar. At the age of 21 Wragge came into the inheritance left to him by his parents and a legacy and family silver left to him by his aunt on his mother's side of the family. He decided to take eight months break from Lincoln's Inn to visit the Egypt and the Levant.
In October 1874 Wragge together with a friend Gaze Hoclen departed London on a Thomas Cook tour travelling to Paris by rail and on to Marseilles, where he sailed to Egypt on the ''Neiman''. He travelled up the Nile and took part in an archeological dig. He then toured Palestine, Jerusalem and the Holy sites, where he met a group of Mormons who interested him. He promised to visit their new city being built at Salt Lake in the American West. After much deliberation, he decided not to return to the United Kingdom with his friend and booked a passage through Cooks on the ''John Tennant'' via India to Australia, then sailed from Newcastle, Sydney in late August 1875 across the Pacific to San Francisco. Once in San Francisco he travelled by rail across the wild west to Toronto via
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...
. Whilst in Salt Lake City he met briefly with
Brigham Young
Brigham Young ( ; June 1, 1801August 29, 1877) was an American religious leader and politician. He was the second President of the Church (LDS Church), president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1847 until h ...
as was his right as a visitor. Later, he wrote a number of articles about Mormons and their religion. In Toronto he met with his cousin
Edmund Wragge who became a famous railway engineer in Canada, South Africa and Great Britain.
He returned home to Oakamoor to face his Uncle George (of Ingleby, Wragge and Ingleby solicitors) who now had Oakamoor Lodge as a country retreat from his practice in Birmingham and was very displeased with his behaviour. He made the far-reaching decision that the law was not for him, and he surrendered his articles and was trained as a midshipman at Janet Taylor's Nautical Academy in London. In 1876 he sailed to Australia, working his passage to Melbourne. He was a good singer and enjoyed the sea shanties sung when hauling up the sails.
He visited his Ingleby relations in Adelaide, including Rupert Ingleby QC (brother of
John Ingleby), and obtained a position with the Surveyor-General's Department in
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...
, participating in surveys of the Flinders Ranges and Murray scrub land. He married on 13 September 1877 Leonora Edith Florence d'Eresby Thornton (her much older sister being married to Rupert Ingleby) and returned to Oakamoor, England on the ''Hesperus'' in 1878 with his wife, where he went straight to his lodgings in Oakamoor.
Meteorology
Wragge needed experience in reading weather, and set up two weather stations: one in North
Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...
in 1879 at Oakamoor railway station for low level readings, and a high level station at Beacon Stoop in the Weaver Hills in North Staffs, not far from Parkhouse farm, Farley, where he moved after a time at Farley Cottage. These readings were made continually until 1883 and the results were sent to him at Ben Nevis when he was in Scotland. He became a prolific writer and was a weekly contributor to the ''Cheadle Herald'' newspaper from 1879 to 1885 and ''Good Words'' and the ''Midland Naturalist'', who supported his work. He became a firm friend of
W. H. Goss, the porcelain manufacturer in Stoke-on-Trent, a fellow member of the North Staffordshire Naturalist and Archeological Field Club.
During 1881 after learning of the Scottish Meteorological Society's plans to establish a weather station on Ben Nevis, Wragge offered to make daily ascents and take meteorological observations.
This offer was subsequently accepted, with Wragge climbing to the top of the mountain on most days between 1 June and mid October, while his wife took comparable readings near sea level at Fort William.
As a result of these series of observations, Wragge was awarded the Society's Gold Medal at a meeting in March 1882.
After a second series of observations was undertaken in 1882 a Summit Observatory was opened in 1883. Wragge applied for the job of Superintendent, but was unsuccessful, possibly because he had a growing family and it needed someone to spend weeks away from home.
Wragge's wife Leonora gave birth to a daughter, Leonora Ingleby, (later renamed Emma) in Oakamoor 1878 and Clement Lionel Egerton in 1880. His third child Rupert Lindley was born in August 1882 in Scotland. Wragge left for Australia soon after in 1883. His first male child, Clement Lionel Egerton, who was born in Farley, Staffordshire in 1880, would later enlist with the 2nd Light Horse Regiment of the
First Australian Imperial Force
The First Australian Imperial Force (1st AIF) was the main Expeditionary warfare, expeditionary force of the Australian Army during the First World War. It was formed as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) following United Kingdom of Great Bri ...
and die from wounds at
Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Peninsula (; ; ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east.
Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name (), meaning ' ...
on 16 May 1915.
He decided to return to Australia and left taking his wife, his now famous, faithful dog 'Renzo' and his cat who caused some havoc on the voyage. In 1884 he moved to the outskirts of
Adelaide
Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...
,
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...
and set up a private meteorological observatory.
He subsequently set up a weather station on
Mount Lofty
Mount Lofty (, elevation AHD) is the highest point in the southern Mount Lofty Ranges. It is located about east of the Adelaide city centre, within the Cleland National Park in the Adelaide Hills area of South Australia.
The mountain's su ...
, and in 1886 was a prime mover in the founding of the Royal Meteorological Society of Australia.
His activities subsequently caught the attention of the
Queensland Government
The Queensland Government is the state government of Queensland, Australia, a Parliament, parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Government is formed by the party or coalition that has gained a majority in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, ...
, who commissioned him to write a report on the development of a meteorological organisation in
Queensland
Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
that could help stem the shipping losses from cyclones.
The Government was impressed with his work and on 1 January 1887 he was appointed Government Meteorologist for Queensland. Within three weeks of his arrival in Brisbane, of rain fell, earning him the nickname "Inclement" Wragge. Wragge built a home, Capemba, at
Taringa
Taringa is a suburb
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser o ...
(now 217 Swann Road).
He quickly caused disquiet amongst meteorologists and astronomers from the other Australian colonies when he started producing charts and predictions not only for Queensland, but for other areas of the continent. He further inflamed them by inscribing his reports ''Meteorology of Australasia, Chief Weather Bureau, Brisbane'' and by claiming that while he and his staff were engaged entirely in meteorological research, weather men in other colonies were government astronomers whose time was also filled with postal and telegraph duties.
In the 1880s and 1890s Wragge set up an extensive network of weather stations around Queensland, and developed a series of storm signals to be used upon telegraphed instructions from
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...
to
Cape Moreton
Cape Moreton is a rocky headland at the north eastern tip of Moreton Island in South East Queensland, Australia. The surrounding area is part of the Moreton Island National Park. Flinders Reef is north-west of Cape Moreton.
The outcrop is mos ...
,
Double Island Point
Double Island Point is a coastal headland in Queensland, Australia. It is the next headland north of Noosa, Queensland, Noosa and is within the Cooloola, Queensland, Cooloola section of the Great Sandy National Park, at the southern end of W ...
,
Sandy Cape
Sandy Cape (also known by the Indigenous name of Woakoh) is the most northern point on Fraser Island (also known as K'gari and Gari) off the coast of Queensland, Australia. The place was named ''Sandy Cape'' for its appearance by James Cook dur ...
,
Bustard Head,
Cape Capricorn,
Flat Top Island,
Cape Bowling Green,
Cape Cleveland,
Cooktown
Cooktown is a coastal town and locality in the Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. Cooktown is at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland where James Cook beached his ship, the '' Endeavour'', for ...
,
Thursday Island
Thursday Island, colloquially known as TI, or in the Kalaw Lagaw Ya, Kawrareg dialect, Waiben or Waibene, is an island of the Torres Strait Islands, an archipelago of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait. TI is located approximately ...
and
Karumba. He also set up an international service with
New Caledonia
New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...
, by which he received data on the newly laid cable from
Nouméa
Nouméa () is the capital and largest city of the French Sui generis collectivity, special collectivity of New Caledonia and is also the largest Francophone city in Oceania. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main i ...
. Between 1888 and 1893, Wragge trained
Inigo Owen Jones who became a renowned long-range weather forecaster.
In 1895, Wragge set up a weather station near the summit of
Mount Wellington, Tasmania, and 1897 established another on
Mount Kosciuszko
Mount Kosciuszko ( ; ; Ngarigo: ) is the highest mountain of the mainland Australia, at above sea level. It is located on the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National Park, a part of the Australian Alps National Parks and ...
. He also attended international conferences in
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
(1891) and Paris (1898 and 1900).
Wragge was also responsible for the convention of naming cyclones. His original idea was to use letters of the
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as wel ...
, but he later used the names of figures from Polynesian mythology, and also politicians, including
James Drake,
Edmund Barton
Sir Edmund "Toby" Barton (18 January 18497 January 1920) was an Australian politician, barrister and jurist who served as the first prime minister of Australia from 1901 to 1903. He held office as the leader of the Protectionist Party, before ...
, and
Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin (3 August 1856 – 7 October 1919) was an Australian politician who served as the second Prime Minister of Australia, prime minister of Australia from 1903 to 1904, 1905 to 1908, and 1909 to 1910. He held office as the leader of th ...
. Other colourful names he used included Xerxes, Hannibal, Blasatus and Teman. After Wragge's retirement, the practice of naming cyclones would cease for sixty years.
In 1898 Wragge began publishing ''Wragge's Australian Weather Guide and Almanac'', which contained not just meteorological information, but contributions on geology, bush craft, agriculture, mining, water supplies and postal information. In an effort to break the drought of 1902 he purchased a number of Steiger Vortex Cannons, which were supposedly able to bring rain from the clouds. Test firings at
Charleville on 26 September were unsuccessful. Wragge was not there to see the actual experiment, having left town after an argument with the local council. Two of the cannons are on display in Charleville.
Wragge resigned in 1903 when the weather bureau of Queensland was combined with other states following the
Federation of Australia
The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia (which also governed what is now the Northern Territory), and Wester ...
, which downgraded his role from a chief to a subordinate.
Later years
Wragge travelled for a number of years after finishing with the Queensland Government. In 1904 he visited the
Cook Islands
The Cook Islands is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of 15 islands whose total land area is approximately . The Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers of ocean. Avarua is its ...
,
New Caledonia
New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...
and
Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...
to examine local fauna, and wrote a report on caterpillars and paper wasps for the government in
Rarotonga
Rarotonga is the largest and most populous of the Cook Islands. The island is volcanic, with an area of , and is home to almost 75% of the country's population, with 10,898 of a total population of 15,040. The Parliament of the Cook Islands, Coo ...
.
He applied unsuccessfully for the job of (Australian) Commonwealth Meteorologist at the
Bureau of Meteorology
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the Government of Australia, Australian Government that is responsible for providing Weather forecasting, weather forecasts and Meteorology, meteorological services to Australia a ...
in 1908 before returning to New Zealand. He lived for a time in
Dunedin
Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...
before settling at 8 Awanui Street (previously named Arawa St and prior to that Bath St),
Birkenhead
Birkenhead () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic co ...
,
Auckland
Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...
with his
de facto wife Louisa Emmeline (known as Edris) Horne, an Anglo-Indian
theosophist
Theosophy is a religious movement established in the United States in the late 19th century. Founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and based largely on her writings, it draws heavily from both older European philosophies such as Neo ...
.
There he founded the Wragge Institute and Museum which was later partly destroyed by fire, including most of his written works and diaries, and also the well known visitor attraction – Waiata tropical gardens.
During his tour to India in 1908, Wragge met
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (13 February 1835 – 26 May 1908) was an Indian religious leader and the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam. He claimed to have been divinely appointed as the promised Messiah and '' Mahdī'', in fulfillment of th ...
, who had claimed to be the Promised Messiah foretold in the Bible and Islamic scriptures. The dialogues between the two are recorded in the ''
Malfūzāt'', the discourses of Ghulam Ahmad. Some of his followers believe that Wragge had converted to Islam and stayed a Muslim until his death. Proof of his conversion is cited by Ahmadiyya Muslim scholars in the form of letters written to
Mufti Muhammad Sadiq, a companion of Ghulam Ahmad, by Prof. Wragge after his meeting with Ghulam Ahmad at Lahore. However, more personal family records suggest that Wragge remained a theosophist up until his death in 1922.
Clement Wragge died on 10 December 1922 in Auckland from a stroke.
His son by his de facto wife Louisa, Kismet K Wragge, stayed on as "First Officer" of the Wragge Institute.
References
Sources
* Crocket, Ke
"The Ben Nevis Mystery"in JMT Journal 38 (January 2005) p19, retrieved 2 December 2006.
* Holmes, Stephani
"A hurricane by any other name?" ''bbc.co.uk'', 21 September 2005. Retrieved 29 December 2005.
*
Archaeopedia Article on Clement Wragge* Cheadle Herald and Midland Naturalist/ J Williams
External links
Biography by the Birkenhead Historical Society
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20050616163426/http://kosciuskohuts.org.au/Peoples%20Bios/Clement%20Wragge.html Kosciuscko Hut Association siteClement Wragge, ArchaeopediaClement Lindley Wragge Lantern Slide Collection, Auckland Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wragge, Clement Lindley
1852 births
1922 deaths
British emigrants to Australia
Australian public servants
Australian meteorologists
People from Queensland
Australian Ahmadis
New Zealand meteorologists